It is something you can get better at. It starts with the decision that I'm going to lighten up. I'm not going to take myself so seriously.
There are going to be times in this relationship we need to be dead serious, but just like date night or an annual abandon, we need to bring the joy into it. So we go through clearly all the mental and physical and emotional benefits of this and then end with the spiritual. Well that's Ted Cunningham and he's with us today on Focus on the Family. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. Hey John, here's a revelation here at Focus on the Family. We love marriage.
I hope that's obvious to everybody. It's foundational to the family, of course, and we believe it's a gift from God. In fact, that's one reason why we talk so much about marriage here on the program. We want to equip you to help you have the best marriage you can have, a marriage that's thriving, as we say, thriving in Christ, regardless of what season of life you're in. As a newly married, God bless you, or as a couple that's been married 40, 50 years, there are still things to learn. And I know that's true in my life and I've been married over 30 years, but every day I'm thinking, ooh, I could have done that better, said that better. But one of the great ingredients that I have enjoyed in my marriage with Gene is being able to bring humor into it. It doesn't always work and I've failed at it, but today we want to help you brush up on those comedy skills, and not for an audience of many, but for an audience of one, your spouse. And we've invited one of our favorite guests here today, pastor and all-around funny guy, Ted Cunningham, to help us with this. And you'll laugh along the way, I hope, as we talk to Ted.
He is the founding pastor of Woodland Hills Family Church in Branson, Missouri. He's also the author of A Love That Laughs, which is a brand-new book that Focus on the Family is putting out. Oh, that's great. It is. And most of the material I understand for the book came from Ted's marriage to his wife Amy.
I don't know if that's true or not, but... Oh, there you go. Hey, Ted, welcome to Focus, by the way. Hey, you know, I'm not just a guest. I am a listener of this broadcast. Oh, that's so much fun.
I love following y'all. All right. So you and Amy, how long have you been married now? Twenty-three years. Wow, that's good. And you're still laughing. Still laughing. Laughing more today than we did in the first 10, first 20.
That is so good. Early in your marriage, you had to find that fun way, though, of communicating, right? Yeah.
And how did that come about? I don't see you as a serious guy, even years ago. You're probably pretty funny. Yeah. Did Amy ever go, can you just stop? Just stop.
Stop being silly. And sometimes people come up to her at events and they'll say, is he like this all the time at home? Does he always tell jokes?
That's exhausting. I'm not telling jokes to my wife all the time. Like, hey, have you heard this one? No, it's finding the humor in everyday life. That's the emphasis of the book, is to be observational in our humor. And so you don't have to be a funny guy, a funny lady. You don't have to be a comedian to find the humor in life for your marriage.
Okay. That right there, though, I did want to hit that, and we might as well hit it early, because temperaments play into this. And you're an extrovert. You can see that. You do have a lens in which you see the world with a bit of humor. I've known you long enough to know that when something goes badly for you, you tend to find something funny in it. I tend to be that way, too. But not everybody's wired that way. Some people are very serious about life.
And there's a time and a place for it. So I don't find the funny in every single thing that happens to us. But as we introduce in the book, I want a laughter-to-conflict ratio that laughter's 100 to 1. And Amy's the one that gave us that first ratio when I asked her, if you were to compare our laughs to our conflict, what would the ratio be? And she didn't even, she gives answers quick in our marriage. She already has answers.
And she said 100 to 1. OK, let me get your best argument for this. And then we're going to move to some examples which are funny. But for that person that's saying, you know what, it just doesn't come easy to me. I hate to blast the engineer mind. I know I'm going to hear from people who say, hey, I'm funny and I'm an engineer.
I get that. But methodic planning people, engineering people, process people tend to look at things with maybe less humor. So tell me again, why? Why do I need to laugh? It seems frivolous to me. And I don't know that the Lord would be laughing at these things.
I mean, seriously, right? I just wish people could see your face right now. You've got that scowl. My wife, when we started this book, she said, make sure it is early on that you make it clear to everyone, I am not a comedian. I don't tell jokes. In 23 years of marriage, she's maybe told one or two jokes. It's just not who she is. She's more of a serious person by nature. And she, you know, looks into every detail of life.
She's into her environment. And so she's grateful that we've made humor a priority in our marriage. And so I believe it or not, I always start with Ecclesiastes 7 when it talks about a good name is better than fine perfume. And the day of death is better than the day of birth. And you're like, why would you start with a funeral to talk about laughter? Because you read, it's better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting. Meaning, when you go to a funeral, that's a recalibrating event. You're learning about life.
And you should be asking questions about how you're living. How are you honoring other people? And yet, when you go to a party, that's a completely different purpose behind it. And that's why the Scripture says sorrow is better than laughter. Well, because sorrow is a teacher. But it doesn't say sorrow is good, laughter is bad. It's just laughter has its place. And so laughter, a cheerful heart, is good medicine. And what I love about humor and laughter in marriage is it's not only a good medicine, but it helps other medicines go down.
So we can learn a lot in the process. And people describe my teaching at church or at conferences and seminars as, yeah, you get us laughing, and then you just hit us with something. We weren't expecting it. We double over. And with laughter, you kind of pick us back up, and you give us a hug, and then bam, right there again. You're like, oh, it's like we just got shot. It's very effective. Yeah, because laughter is a great tool.
Humor is a great way that we can express ourselves through difficult and challenging times. All right, you've answered that. Um, let's go back to you and Amy and your differences. I think New York, you had something going on in a New York restaurant, which is an example of how to manage some things.
I was born in the corn fields outside of Chicago, Illinois, Northern Illinois. And so my favorite meal was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and corn. And then I can eat that every day. My wife is a foodie. So the first time she took us to a foodie restaurant, and you know what I mean by foodie? It means you're going to spend some money, and you're going to need a snack when you leave. You are not going to leave full. And so I already had all sorts of attitude going into it.
But one of the things I love about humor is you can enjoy your spouse's activity or hobby without actually enjoying your spouse's activity or hobby because you're having fun along the way. We walked into this restaurant, and I don't make up one word of this. The waiter comes over with a plank, like a cedar plank, and he's got a mint leaf sticking out of both sides of it. And I look at Amy. I said, is that the salad? Is this where we're starting with this thing? And this waiter deadpan.
I mean, he's as serious as can be. He says, no, the chef picked this earlier today in New Jersey. Like, I'm supposed to be impressed with New Jersey mint. I don't know what New Jersey mint.
But he was very proud of where they got the mint. And he said, the chef recommends that you rub this over your lips and under your nose and on your chin. I am rolling my eyes at Amy. And I'm in a restaurant, and he's not joking.
He wants us to prepare ourselves by cleaning our face with this mint. And I look over at my wife. She's chuckling because she knows what I'm thinking, which is that's the fun part of being married a long time. You don't even have to have conversation, and you can laugh because you know how your spouse is processing something. My wife's fully into it.
She is rubbing this leaf all over her lips and under her nose and fully into it. And I told the guy, I said, you know where I'm from, we grew a lot of produce. We just never once thought about rubbing it on our faces.
And I think if a husband and wife are going to, you know, be rubbing produce on their faces, this is something we should have a little bit of privacy for. I'm going to need you to back away from this one a little bit, buddy. And he stood there. I wore that mint leaf out. I rubbed it everywhere. I was given, and he knew I was not appreciating it.
But those are those moments. Like, I've only had one massage in my life. My wife loves massages.
We were at an event, and I'm just going to say we were in California. So the event gifted us a couple's massage, and I hated every single minute of that 60-minute massage. I felt violated and uncomfortable.
I didn't like anything. And the entire time, coming from underneath the other table, this is all I heard from my wife. Because she knew. We didn't have to say a word, but she was laughing and having a good time because she knew I was miserable through the whole thing. And that's what I love about humor and marriage. It's like, Amy doesn't even have to be here right now, and I can tell you completely.
You throw any scenario at me. I can tell you how she's going to react to it. And that's where you find the fun. You know, Ted, again, some married couples, that may not go down as well. And I want to explore that a little bit, where even in that scenario, you know, the wife's chuckling because she knows, and the husband's getting mad. He's not laughing about it.
It's like, why would you put me in this position? We're not talking about humor that's biting. We're not talking about humor that's sarcastic, that's like tearing of the flesh. We're not talking about mean, hurtful, constantly ribbing. It's that lightheartedness that I just see missing in so many marriages. And I'll be honest with you. I think most couples start off lighthearted.
You know, I listen to your broadcast. I hear a lot of great stories of couples early on, but then something happens. And I think that something that happens is drift.
They drift away. It was natural. We say this often in marriage teaching. It was natural early in the relationship. But you drifted away from it. And all you need to do to make it natural again is become intentional. What was natural, you now need to be intentional with 10, 20, 30 years in.
And if you become intentional, it can become natural again, to where it's just the ebb and flow of your daily life as a couple. And that's the goal of this book. So if you're listening and you're really struggling here, chill out. Just give it a try.
And let's listen to some of the ways you can apply that. It leads us to what you're calling the call back. Now, I've never heard this term before, but in the book you describe the call back.
What is it? OK, so the call back is why you love your favorite comedians. And you've heard the call back a lot.
You just didn't know the name of it. Because the call back is when there's a punch line earlier in a set, and he brings it back up or she brings it back up off of a different story or a different premise. It usually gets a bigger laugh because you didn't see it coming. Because what comedy is, it's the jostling of the brain, right?
It's the shocking of the brain. Like, I didn't see that one coming. So for Amy and I, that New York restaurant, I'm not leaving that restaurant without a call back. And now my call back is whenever we're at my favorite restaurant, which is Les Cracker Barrels. You take a lettuce leaf.
I take broccoli off her plate and start rubbing it on my cheek. And we have a laugh from something that happened six years ago. And that's why in the book, we want couples to figure out what their call backs are, write them down at the end, put them in that journal so that you can keep going back to them.
You might call them an inside joke, but they're the call backs. And we have so many call backs in our marriage, taking everything that's irritating, frustrating, annoying, that would just usually grate on us. And the key with all of this is we've made the decision we're going to enjoy life together. Enjoy life.
That's what I like about that. You have to make the decision. And I just want to put this out there first, because if a couple comes into my office in conflict, if they're in need of hope restored and I need to send them to a marriage intensive, I'm not teaching them how to be funny with each other in that moment. I'm not teaching them to tell jokes and all that. But after they go through the marriage intensive, which is what we hear from couples coming out of the marriage intensive years later, we're experiencing levels of marital satisfaction.
We never dreamed possible. Then it's at that point, you begin to teach them how not to get back into the drift that took you into that. And that's when I would begin teaching that couple quality couple time, enjoying life together and bringing more humor into your marriage. That it plays a role. Exactly. And the point is the callback helps diffuse a lot of situations. There's the secret though with the callback.
You have to give it time. I've made the mistake of bringing humor at the wrong time. So timing is everything in comedy.
We know this. And so my wife was one day making a brussel sprout salad. That's a non-starter right there. I need a lot of mint for that. Because every party needs a brussel sprout salad. But she spent an hour in the kitchen chopping and cutting and dicing, making the salad beautiful, put it in this bowl. And I had bought her the coolest as-seen-on-TV invention I've ever seen. It's a suction lid. It's just a flat silicone lid that you put on the top of it. And when you pick it up, it suctions to the bowl and the lid's sealed.
It's amazing. And I watched her picking this up after she made the salad. And I could see her processing in her mind, this thing is truly amazing. Well, the mistake she made is she picked it up and walked over to the refrigerator with it. And as she's walking to the refrigerator, she's not supporting the bottom of the bowl. She looks at me and actually says the words, this thing is amazing. And as soon as she said amazing, the bowl separated from the lid, smashed on the ground, brussel sprout cabbage is everywhere in our kitchen. And I lose it. A little tear forms in the right corner of her eye. She walks over all of the mess into the bedroom, which I interpreted to mean you're cleaning this up because you bought the lid. My son Carson walks into the room and he goes, what happened here? I go, come over here.
And we just have a good laugh. About 30 minutes later, I'm going to try to use the, this thing is amazing callback. Listen, that's not enough time. 30 minutes is not enough time. So bringing humor in, that's another aspect of this.
You got to know timing. And if you'd like some of those suction cup lids, John, tell our fans, well, if you order now, we'll send you a copy of Ted's book. It's a love that laughs, lighten up, cut loose and enjoy life together. The author is Ted Cunningham. He's our guest today on focus on the family.
We do have copies of the book, not the lid at focus on the family.com slash broadcast or call 800 a family. Hey Ted, I want to hit the benefits of laughter. Cause again, for the scientists in the audience, tell me why, what's the benefit of laughter? Hit it.
It's quite expansive. And you mentioned the engineers. They're going to love chapter two, which is 38 benefits of laughter. Right?
Yeah. And to see the purpose, well, the mental, the physical, the emotional, the relational. And then I end that list with the spiritual, the spiritual benefits. Uh, the most, most research went into that chapter, uh, of the book, but we, we just talk about how it manages stress and you can work through difficult situations and conversations like we just have already really talked about, but it bonds us.
It eases tension, diffuses anger, lightens the mood. I mean, and I go all the way through. It even makes you more attractive. You know, I tell the guys, I tell the young guys in our church who feel like, man, I'm never going to find a woman. Well, you don't need, you know, the, the face of Brad Pitt, the body of the rock or the attitude of Tony Stark. Well, you need a paycheck and a few jokes.
That's what I tell the guys in our church all the time. You just need a paycheck and a few jokes. But women find men with a sense of humor, attractive and you're like, well, I don't have a sense of humor. Well, that's why we talk about these benefits because it's something you can work on.
I mean, that should be convincing right there. What's the difference between choosing and pursuing laughter rather than just waiting for it to happen? How can we choose laughter? I've always been gripped with Scott Stanley's definition of choice, of choosing when he says decisions have power. And I love that because we talk about decisions all the time. You need to make decisions.
So this is one of those decisions, a choice that you make and it has power when we've decided, and now that's the decision. But then the pursuing is, we're looking for it all day long. We're finding the opportunities. I can tell you me laughing six times a day, if that's the average adult laughter, that is not for me.
That is not for my home. That is underachieving for you. Oh, that's way underachieving. If I get to lunch and I've only laughed six times, I don't think I'm pursuing it. That seems like a high bar all of a sudden. You've laughed 30 or 40 times already today, Jim. Well, I'm just saying for the person that doesn't come naturally, that could sound really overwhelming now. Wow, six times before lunch?
And that's low? Now you've intimidated me. Yeah. And I know there are jobs that are serious and you're not cracking jokes. And I just want people to get the emphasis of this book is not joke writing. The emphasis of this book is finding joy. It's your humor.
Yeah. And looking for lighthearted moments throughout the day. We find it in our kids. We find it in our marriage. We can find it in our jobs. We can find it at the DMV. We can find it while driving.
It's everywhere you turn. It's just, it's just the decision that you make is I can be frustrated on this customer service call right now, or I can have fun with it. That's the pursuit part. So I make the decision. I'm going to find joy in life. I'm going to enjoy life with my wife.
Ecclesiastes nine, nine, a cheerful heart is good medicine. These are all decisions that we've made. Now we pursue it. And the book is full of over a hundred practical ways to pursue laughter and humor in your marriage.
Okay. So somebody who's not had a high degree of humor in their marriage and they're saying, okay, I heard Ted Cunningham today. I'm focused on the family.
I'm going to, I'm going to go for it tonight. And then boom, their humor just bombs. And now they, they may give up, but what would be your encouragement to the person who's attempting humor in their marriage, but it's not landing right. So we've already talked about timing, but if I give some low hanging fruit for humor and laughter, and I think singing and dancing are the lowest, the lowest forms of comedy, because people will say the same thing. Well, I'm not good at singing. Well, that's the point, right?
That's funny. I can't, I don't have rhythm. I can't, I can't dance. Well, that's the point, right? Commitment is everything. I'll walk off stage after I hear a comedian bomb and they'll go, man, what happened?
I go, the problem was you weren't committed to the joke. And when you're not committed to it, the person receiving, it's not going to be committed to it. We've all seen comedians give up on stage and be like, oh man, if they weren't into it, I'm not going to be into it. So I think the person who hasn't pursued humor or hasn't made the decision to pursue it, they, they just haven't been working that muscle. They just got to get into a point where they're committed to it and trying and attempting. And this is a big important part.
I cover this in the book over actually a couple of pages. So there's physical benefits to laughter. We all know that. You breathe in oxygen, rich air. Vandorfen's University says, you know, you can burn up to 40 calories with 10 to 15 minutes of belly laughing. That's why I say, so don't go work out, just help each other laugh. And this is the cool part. Your body cannot tell the difference between fake and real laughter. So I tell wives when your husband's attempting it, fake it, right? Laugh, like just fake the laughter, pursue it. And this is key.
It'll, it'll catch on. Uh, MD Anderson, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, um, uh, the, the Mayo Clinic, they have laughter therapy. They're not saying that laughter heals the body, but they know laughter is a great way to help people through the treatments. And one of the things they do is they just sit around in circles and they fake laugh.
Okay. But that fake laughter can turn into real laughter, but just like a yawn, laughter is contagious. And you watch somebody fake laughing and you're like, this is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. And it starts to trigger something in you. One of the things, and people are going to be shocked, but I mean, when the boys and Jean and I are praying, you know, we're getting gathered, we do a little devotion or something and then we're about to pray.
Certainly one of the three guys, it's never mom, it's either me or Trent or Tori. We start giggling about something because something is funny. I mean, it's even the ritual sometimes can be quite funny the way we approach it. And so one of us will start giggling and it gets the other two of us.
Mama's not giggling so much because this is time before the Lord. He's like, but we can't help it. And then we, okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Let me try again, dear.
Here we go. And it's just so funny, but it's, there's nothing really funny. What's going on with that? It's like spontaneous. And something strikes you as funny, but doesn't strike your spouse as funny. And you get to giggling. There's been more times in movies where I start laughing at my wife laughing. And that even becomes a callback of sorts because you get in the car later and she'll think about it. She'll be falling asleep and she'll think about that and start laughing.
And I just started laughing because she's laughing. This is the power of how God created us. This laughter, this joy. It's why I just, it's why Paul says rejoice. I'll say it again.
Rejoice. I mean, these are decisions that we make. But there's something in there about vulnerability.
It struck me a moment ago when you were talking about it, the ability to sing and dance. Yeah. Okay.
There's a vulnerability in doing that. And you've got to be a little emptied of your ego to put yourself in a silly position, which again is why I think the Lord loves it. Yeah. Because it kind of humbles you when you're not taking yourself so seriously all the time.
Yeah. And I tell, I tell guys this, that they do not have a sense of humor and they're wanting to figure out how to bring more humor into their marriage. And I tell them, all right, I just want you to pick one of her favorite songs and sing it to her. They're like, Oh, dinner like across the table.
No, no, no. In the car while driving. Cause now you have another activity to focus on. This always helps. This diffuses a guy. Maybe some background music that'll help you.
You're almost, yeah. It's just, it's like karaoke in the car and you've got the overhead lights that I use as spotlight. So when it's my turn to sing, I put the spotlight on me and then I turn it off and put it on Amy.
There's all sorts of ways that you can do this. And what I call again, that low hanging fruit to just make the attempt. And I always tell the spouse, even, even with apologies, even if the words aren't coming out, right. But you know, the heart is there.
Receive it. I say the same thing with humor and laughter. If your spouse is making the attempt, that deserves recognition. That deserves a fake laugh.
If that's all you can come up with. This is where my girls in particular have watched us interact. And they're like, mom, he's just telling you the weather and you're laughing about it.
What is it with that? But we've chosen to do that very thing just to encourage each other and to find the humor in some of the silliest things. I hope that they catch that and go into marriage, absolutely looking for a guy that's going to make them laugh.
Absolutely. And, and so we talked about this in the book. When you get married, there's also this shared sense of humor that you have to develop. And that's a whole nother level that I enjoy that again, we don't even have to be talking and we can see something. And she knows what I'm thinking.
I know what she's thinking. And the laughter starts. And that's that shared sense of humor that you get with the oneness of marriage. And you grow into over time. And that's what I want to encourage young couples with. If the joy and the fun and that which was natural early in the relationship, don't drift from that.
You have to make what we're talking about right now intentional. And so you have to find ways like it for Amy and I, we don't watch heavy movies, right? We really don't. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with dramas or anything like that. But our life is serious enough with some of the issues we deal with on a regular basis can be quite stressful. And so we kind of make sure we're watching movies that make us laugh.
And just I just I consider them free laughs, you know, you're paying for a movie ticket. But I mean, I consider it's not anything I'm working for, you know, it's now there and we're able to and and some of the humor in our marriage is bringing stuff from the screen into our marriage. You know, like I always joke with their I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but all of these couples that you know, don't have jobs and they're cuddling in $5 million apartments in New York City, I always have to remind her, I would stay home Amy and cuddle with you all day, because I got a job.
I got a job. Okay, I can't do what we see. And I'll say that to her in a movie when she sees something happen. And I'll be like, you know, we can't do that.
Right. And she's like, Why? I go because we have jobs.
Okay, we got to actually go out. And we've got kids. And we've got this kids with Ted, your book is just full of great laughing activities. And we can do this with their spouses. So start by bringing more laughter into your marriage.
That's a very inexpensive way. It's a lot cheaper than counseling right now. If you're in that place where you need counseling, don't get me wrong, you need to get serious about that. But if you're just in the normal doldrums of life, and marriage seems to be more dry than you remembered it in the beginning, try and introducing again, more humor into your relationship.
Never at someone's expense, but with them. And Ted, you've done a great job at you. We're we're laughing with you.
That's right. And hopefully we're laughing at ourselves more often. But this is a great way again, to invoke some light heartedness into your marriage.
And we're focus. We're about your marriage. We want you to have a thriving marriage in Christ. And I think God has a great sense of humor.
I think his belly laugh I've often asked myself, what will that belly laugh be like? Yeah, Randy Alcorn does a great job talking about the the laughter that Jesus will participate in, and be the source of well, and you started to Ted, don't underestimate the power of what you've written in your great book and how people can introduce that again, laughter into and humor into their marriage. Thank you so much for being with us. If you want a copy of the book, hey, join us in ministering here through Focus on the Family. Make a gift of any amount and we'll send you a copy of Ted's book to say thank you for helping marriages to thrive in Christ. And our phone number is 800, the letter A in the word family. You can donate and get a copy of Ted's book by calling that number or stopping by focusonthefamily.com slash broadcast. And while you're there, be sure to check out our Focus on Marriage assessment, which is a great little quiz. It's absolutely free, takes just a few minutes and you'll learn areas of strength as well as maybe an area or two to grow in when it comes to your marriage. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
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